Are you up for a book related challenge?  By going to this website you can take a very interesting quiz.  What happens is, they show you a vertical stripe taken from one of the seven Harry Potter books and you need to figure out which book it is taken from.

Lit Slits, Volume III (Harry Potter Edition)

I took the quiz and got a 100, so according to the quiz I’m an Auror, YAY!  How will you do?

The Keighley News is reporting that Michael Thompson who will be playing a death eater in Deathly Hallows has donated a set of Potter books to the British Heart Foundation charity.

For the past few years Mr Thompson has been collecting first editions of the famous books written by JK Rowling.  Now he has given a full set of seven books to the BHF’s charity shop in Keighley. They are being valued by BHF experts in Halifax and are likely to be auctioned on ebay. Mr Thompson said one of the books had previously been valued at about £100.
[…]
Mr Thompson decided to donate books after his mother, Noreen, was fitted with a pacemaker for her heart. He has about 60 Harry Potter books at home but admits that even after taking part in filming, he has never read any of the stories.

I will post again if/when these appear on ebay or up for auction.

The Economist has a new article online entitled: The Harry Potter Economy where they discuss the Harry Potter franchise and all the money it makes as well as it’s effect on the economy.  Here are some snippets

This production line at Leavesden Studios, which has been running for almost a decade, will soon be switched off. “People talk about the effect of factories closing,” says David Heyman, who produces the Harry Potter films. “When we stop filming next May, at least 800 people will be looking for work.”

The first company to be transformed was Bloomsbury, a London publishing house. It was a somewhat unlikely home for a blockbuster children’s book series. […] As each book appeared it drew new readers to the series and expanded sales of earlier books in a snowball effect. Thanks largely to the boy wizard, Bloomsbury’s turnover, which had gradually increased from £11m in 1995 to £14m in 1997, took off. In 1999 it stood at £21m. Two years later it was £61m. By the middle of this decade, with Bloomsbury’s revenues above £100m, rival publishers were griping that there was no point bidding against the firm for a children’s title.

In 2000 Ms Rowling said her “worst nightmare” was that her hero would end up on the side of fast-food containers. He was to appear just about everywhere else. Warner Bros, which had been wary of being seen to spoil a revered series of books with tacky tie-ins, had no qualms about exploiting its own property.

Thanks MN!

According to The Telegraph some Harry Potter books are in Amazon’s top selling books of the decade!  JK Rowling is also the top selling author of the decade!

Top 10 best-selling books of the decade:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling

6. The Tales of Beedle the Bard – JK Rowling

Top 10 best-selling authors of the decade:

1. JK Rowling

Once again I have gasped out loud during jeopardy.  Today in the “Flower Girls” category we had a Potter question:

Pug-faced Slytherin student Parkinson, who’s keen on Draco Malfoy.

10 points to anyone who gets it right! 😉

The Bookseller has posted a list of the Top 10 Bestselling books of the decade.

The top 10 books of the Noughties:

1 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown

2 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J K Rowling

3 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J K Rowling

4 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince J K Rowling

5 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J K Rowling

6 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone J K Rowling

7 Angels and Demons Dan Brown

8 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban J K Rowling

9 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J K Rowling

10 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon

Thanks SS!